PRESS STATEMENT ISSUED BY HON. MARY ANKOMAH BOAKYE BOATENG, NATIONAL WOMEN’S ORGANISER OF THE CONVENTION PEOPLE’S PARTY (CPP) TO ANNOUNCE HER RESIGNATION FROM THE PARTY ON TUESDAY FEBRUARY 28, 2012.

Today, I announce my resignation as National Women’s Organiser of the Convention People’s Party CPP. My decision to quit has been informed by several developments within the party since I took office as National Women’s Organiser after our historic Congress of September 2011.

We went to congress in September 2011, with promise and hope to elect national officers to lead the party for a term of four years. Our agenda, under the leadership of then Chairman, Ladi Nylander was clear; it was to intensify our campaign as the alternative to the NDC and NPP through the propagation of alternative policy visions, to enable us to win the 2012 elections and with that mandate, transform Ghana for the benefit of all her citizens.

To our utter surprise and indignation however, the newly elected Chairman, Samia Nkrumah and her group of retrogressive, political neophytes, triggered a tragic implosion that has killed the CPP. It turned out that Samia and Ivor Greenstreet, Chairman and General Secretary respectively had been sponsored to contest for their positions by other political parties and interests to ensure that our agenda of ever winning elections were frustrated.

Their deal with the sponsors was to ensure that the CPP did not field a Presidential candidate this year and in return have Samia partner their Presidential Candidate in the 2016 general elections. The deal, sounded irresistible to Samia, who went all out to get Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom and other progressives out of the party. Today, some 86 percent of former CPP members have left or are about to leave the CPP to join their progressive colleagues, who left earlier to form the Progressive People’s Party PPP.

As a former Member of Parliament, I know what it takes to win on the ticket of a third party like the CPP. There is incontrovertible evidence that the current CPP chaired by Samia, exists not to win election to govern this country. Their reason for existence is to support other parties in return for petty cash and handouts. So, while some of us have focused on working hard as an independent party, to present the alternative Ghanaians have been looking for, Samia and her friends have decided to sell the party to the NDC and NPP.

I am convinced that Samia is on an emotional and “sight seeing” ego trip motivated by greed hypocrisy and a suddenly cultivated love for adulation. This is a lady who calls for unity at every opportunity but her actions divide our ranks. She calls for accountability, transparency and inclusiveness yet; she and the General Secretary continue to make shadowy moves, taking decisions on our behalf without any reference to party leadership.

Samia and Greenstreet have sidelined the Organization Committee of the party. As I speak Samia and Green are the organizers, treasurers and everything in the party. If this is what she calls transparency, honesty and unity, then, I do not wish to be part of it. The disrespectful and dictatorial tendencies of Samia are at odds with Ghanaian culture and values. For instance every time we meet as leadership, she reminds the meeting 100 times over that she is the chairman and must be OBEYED. OBEYED?

During nomination and appointment of Chairmen of sub-committees of the Central committee she brought a list of names of her cohorts and stated emphatically that those were the people that she wanted to work with, in absolute disregard to the procedures provided for in our party constitution. She insists the party constitution as mere paper, which she is not ready to work with. As I speak, she has constituted her own sub-committees that she was working with outside the party structures.

I have come to the firm conclusion that CPP led by Samia is not the place for a progressive like me. I therefore quit effective today, Tuesday, February 28, 2012 to join the Progressive People’s Party PPP. The Sun Is Shinning, and I Am wide AWAKE!

Signed:

Hon. MARY ANKOMAH BOAKYE BOATENG.

FORMER NATIONAL WOMEN’S ORGANISER, (CPP).

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